142 ROME AND HER CHURCH. 



tude, they are, — but I will spare myself the painful task of specifying 

 them, and will wind up what has already been said with a short illus- 

 tration and improvement of the whole. 



" For this, suppose that a sensible and serious stranger, from some 

 remote region of the world, — an intelligent and virtuous heathen, for 

 example, — no idolater, but a natural religionist, whose soul was open to 

 truth, and endowed with goodness, — just such another man as Cornelius 

 seems to have been before he became a Christian ; — suppose, I say, that 

 this man, led by the love of observation and inquiry, was to visit the 

 European countries, and, after acquiring the necessary languages, was 

 to traverse, first of all, the land of Popery, and to view the aspect which 

 that religion wears, and the effects which it produces : what do you 

 imagine would be his astonishment and disgust, when he found the 

 priests requiring and commanding the people, under the pain of exquisite 

 tortures in this world, and of consummate misery in the next, to believe 

 the most monstrous absurdities and contradictions ; to swallow the 

 grossest lies and blasphemy ; and to revere, to imitate, to worship, as 

 saints and gods, some of the worst and vilest of mankind ; as well as to 

 practise, without end, the merest foppery and futility, in place of real 

 religion and morality ; — nay, directly undermining the foundations of 

 all religion and morality, by encouraging men to sin with the assurance 

 of a pardon, whenever they may please to purchase one : in a word, in- 

 culcating, in the name of the Thrice Holy, such tenets and such prac- 

 tices as are almost beyond the very refuse of Paganism, and denouncing, 

 in the same infinitely venerable name, death and damnation against all 

 who will not fall down and worship the image which they have set up ! 

 How would this amazement and horror be heightened, when, looking 

 into history, he understood what dismal fields of blood, and hellish 

 engines of torment, this church did boast of, as the noblest proofs of her 

 piety and zeal ? How would our honest heathen burn with indignation 

 at such a church, and with what impatience would he break away from 

 such a land of abomination ? Suppose him now to bend his course to 

 Great Britain, to observe, in general, the plain, good-natured, manly 

 face of the religion taught and professed in it, and, upon inquiry, to be 

 particularly instructed, by any of its most rational and worthy teachers, 

 concerning the divine original, the heavenly nature, and the excellent 

 tendency of that religion. Suppose him next to consider the politi- 

 cal state of the country, to contemplate its freedom, its wealth, its inde- 

 pendence ; and to be informed how all these do naturally grow out of 

 the frame of its government, as a government of laws — of laws enacted 

 by the people and maintained by the prince — by a prince who is at this 

 very time a father of his people. After this, let him look once more 

 into history, and there read by what strangely merciful interpositions of 

 Heaven this religion and this government have been restored and 

 secured, when both have been in danger of being extinguished. Oh ! 

 my brethren, what emotions of delight and admiration may we conceive 

 would fill the breast of our sensible and virtuous stranger, on this com- 

 plete survey ? But how would these be mingled with sentiments of the 

 sincerest regret and displeasure, when, after all, he came to look more 

 attentively into the character and manners of this greatly favoured 

 nation, and to discover the corruption that runs through all ranks, ap- 



